Page:The Judicial Capacity of the General Convention Exemplified.djvu/28

26 (No. VIII.)

, May 30th, 1856.

,

Your note of yesterday I have just received, and hasten to say in reply, that it gives me no little surprise to learn that there should be, from any quarter, an intimation affecting the uprightness, sincerity, and entire truthfulness of our esteemed friend Thomas S. Miller, than whom I have scarcely ever known an individual of more conscientious spirit or honest intention.

In reference to the matter to which you allude, I had occasional conversations with Mr. M., and I recollect of being particularly struck with the motives which appeared to prompt him in the course he pursued. He had heard a report of some transactions which seemed to reflect somewhat upon yourself. As the tendency was of course to impair a confidence in you which he had always cherished, he had evidently determined to investigate the affair thoroughly for his own satisfaction, and for the ends of pure justice. He did not appear to me to have gone into the inquiry with any foregone conclusion, or with any partisan aim. I was strongly impressed that his grand purpose was to establish the truth, on which soever side it lay. That he may possibly have mistaken the import of some facts or expressions, may be admitted on the ground of human fallibility ; but that he intended to conduct the investigation in the most upright and impartial manner, and that all his statements were according to his most solemn convictions of truth, I have not the shadow of a doubt. Indeed, it has seldom been my lot to meet a man who combined in his character more of a rigid and Roman integrity of purpose, with more of a gentle and pleasing deportment in his ordinary intercourse with men. Very truly, Yours, &c.,

Now, how the General Convention, with such testimonials as these before it—and the Convention was in possession of all this at its last session—could render a verdict directly in the face of the sworn testimony of Mr. Miller, and one which virtually adjudges him to have been guilty of perjury, it is not easy to conceive, unless there be something radically wrong—some terrible prejudice, or some deep corruption somewhere in that body.

Being prevented, by sickness in my family, from attending the Convention in 1855, and learning that Mr. Wilks intended, at that meeting, to make application for membership, I wrote the President of the Convention, and sent him at the same time copies of the two letters from Mr. Miller (Nos. I. and V. pp. 11, 19) upon which I based my charge of calumny. I here give some extracts from my letter to the President, enough to show how strong and earnest was my protest against his being admitted a member of the Convention (which Mr. Worcester considers a "Church in larger form") until the matter complained of was